American Film Institute Announces 2012 Awards

The American Film Institute (AFI) describes itself as “America’s promise to preserve the history of the motion picture, to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation of storytellers.” Their awards focus on American feature films and television programs.

Some of the "best film" selections are expected, such as Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, and Beasts of the Southern Wild (which seems to be gaining not just momentum, but also a big head of steam).  The Dark Knight Rises, which I found to be loud and self-important (acceptable traits if you're a film critic), would make my bottom ten.  I have not watched any of the honored television series, and I've grown tired of "Modern Family."

AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR – 2012:

ARGO

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

DJANGO UNCHAINED

LES MISÉRABLES

LIFE OF PI

LINCOLN

MOONRISE KINGDOM

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

ZERO DARK THIRTY

AFI TV PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR:

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM

BREAKING BAD

GAME OF THRONES

GIRLS

HOMELAND

LOUIE

MAD MEN

MODERN FAMILY

THE WALKING DEAD

AFI has stated that it will honor the creative ensembles for each of the selections at an invitation-only luncheon on Friday, January 11, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

"Broken" is British Indie Film Awards Best Picture of 2012

Created in 1998, The British Independent Film Awards, by its own description, celebrates merit and achievement in independently funded British filmmaking, honor new film talent, and promote British films and filmmaking to a wider public.  The 15th Annual Moët British Independent Film Awards ceremony was held last night (Sunday, December 9, 2012) in London.

The coming-of-age drama, Broken, won the "Best Film" award.  Berberian Sound Studio, a psychological thriller set at a 1970s Italian horror movie studio, was the big winner, capturing 4 awards, including "Best Director" for Peter Strickland.

The 15th Annual Moët British Independent Film Awards Winners:

BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM- Sponsored by Moët & Chandon
Broken

BEST DIRECTOR - Sponsored by AllCity & Intermission
Peter Strickland – Berberian Sound Studio

THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD [BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR] - Sponsored by 3 Mills Studios
Bart Layton – The Imposter

BEST SCREENPLAY - Sponsored by BBC Films
Alice Lowe, Steve Oram, Amy Jump – Sightseers

BEST ACTRESS- Sponsored by M.A.C
Andrea Riseborough (as Colette McVeigh) – Shadow Dancer

BEST ACTOR
Toby Jones (as Gilderoy) – Berberian Sound Studio

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Olivia Colman (as Queen Elizabeth) – Hyde Park on Hudson

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR- Sponsored by Sanderson & St Martins Lane
Rory Kinnear (Bob Oswald) – Broken

MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER - Sponsored by Studiocanal
James Floyd (Rashid) – My Brother the Devil

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION - Sponsored by Company3
Berberian Sound Studio

BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT - Sponsored by LightBrigade Media
Joakim Sundström, Stevie Haywood AMPS IPS– Sound Design – Berberian Sound Studio

BEST DOCUMENTARY
The Imposter

BEST BRITISH SHORT- Supported by the BFI
Volume

BEST INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM
The Hunt (from Denmark)

THE RAINDANCE AWARD
Strings

THE RICHARD HARRIS AWARD (for outstanding contribution by an actor to British Film)
Sir Michael Gambon

THE VARIETY AWARD
Jude Law

THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
Sandra Hebron

http://www.bifa.org.uk/

Tom Cruise Movie "Oblivion" Debuts Trailer and Poster

Radical Studios’ Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise debuts one-sheet, trailer online

Radical Studios is thrilled to announce the online debut of the teaser one-sheet, trailer and select images of its first major motion picture: Oblivion, being released by Universal Pictures. The sci-fi epic is based on a yet to be released Radical Publishing graphic novel, original concept by TRON: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski, written by Arvid Nelson and art by Andrée Wallen.

The film is directed by Joseph Kosinski, stars Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Melissa Leo. Oblivion is produced by Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Joseph Kosinski, Duncan Henderson and Radical President Barry Levine, with executive producers David Morrison, Radical Executive Vice President Jesse Berger and Justin Springer. The film is set for an April 12, 2013 IMAX release and an April 19, 2013 worldwide release. The graphic novel is expected to release in 2014.

Fans can check out the teaser one-sheet of Oblivion at http://www.ign.com and visit the film’s newly launched website at www.oblivionmovie.com, facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/oblivion and twitter at www.twitter.com/oblivionmovie #OBLIVION. On December 9, 2012 the trailer will make its online debut at http://trailers.apple.com.

Here is the official plot synopsis for the movie:
“Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete.

Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands."

This news comes on the heels of Radical’s recent announcement that its best-selling original graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars will be adapted as a motion picture by MGM and Paramount Pictures. Hercules stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and will be directed by Brett Ratner. Production is scheduled to start in early 2013.

Please visit http://radicalstudios.com/ to learn more about Oblivion, Hercules: The Thracian Wars, and the rest of Radical’s amazing library of titles. All books are available for purchase on the site as well as digitally through iTunes and Amazon.

Radical Studios will continue to release news and updates surrounding both Oblivion and Hercules. Stay informed by liking Radical’s Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/RadicalPublishing, following Radical’s YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/RadicalPublishing, and following @radicalstudios on Twitter.

About Radical Studios: Radical Studios is a multimedia studio centralized around a catalog of stories and characters. The company is currently focused on licensing its intellectual properties in both domestic and international markets, in physical and digital publishing, feature films, television, merchandise, recorded music, digital and online media applications and mobile and social games. Radical is represented by David Schiff of The Schiff Company and Phil Rosen of Rosen Law Group.

Review: "Art School Confidential" Has an Artful Cast (Happy B'day, John Malkovich)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 216 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Art School Confidential (2006)
Running time: 102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
MPAA – R for language including sexual references, nudity, and a scene of violence
DIRECTOR: Terry Zwigoff
WRITER: Daniel Clowes (based on the comic by Daniel Clowes)
PRODUCERS: Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, and Russell Smith
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jamie Anderson, A.S.C. (director of photography)
EDITOR: Robert Hoffman
COMPOSER: David Kitay

COMEDY/DRAMA with elements of romance

Starring: Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Matt Keeslar, Ethan Suplee, Joel David Moore, Nick Swardson, Anjelica Huston, Adam Scott, Jack Ong, Michael Lerner, and Ezra Buzzington

The subject of this movie review is Art School Confidential, a 2006 comedy-drama from director Terry Zwigoff. The film is based on a four-page comic book short story written and drawn by Daniel Clowes and published in Clowes’ comic book series, Eightball #7 (Fantagraphics Books). Clowes wrote the screenplay for Art School Confidential, the second film collaboration between him and Zwigoff. Zwigoff directed and Clowes wrote the screenplay for Ghost World, a film based on a Clowes graphic novel.

In Art School Confidential, an ambitious art school student tries desperately to get the girl of his dreams, but she’s attracted to a dumb jock type whose simplistic pop art paintings have taken the art class by storm. This the second film from the team of Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes that gave us the Oscar-nominated, Ghost World. Clowes is a comic book artist, and Art School Confidential, like Ghost World, is adapted from his comics.

Jerome Platz (Max Minghella) wants to be the greatest artist of the 21st Century, and to that end he escapes his suburban home and terrible high school to a tiny East Coast art school, the Strathmore Institute. However, the beauty and craft of his portraiture does not win him any friends among his fellow students in the anything-goes art class. He finds this new world filled with a collection of offbeat characters: his worldly, but obnoxious classmate, Bardo (Joel David Moore); a roommate exploding with the desire to make a cinematic masterpiece of blood and violence, Vince (Ethan Suplee); his self-involved art teacher, Professor Sandiford (John Malkovich); and a failed artist and Strathmore grad who is drowning in alcohol and self-pity, Jimmy (Jim Broadbent).

Jerome does find his eye drawn to the girl of his dreams, Audrey Baumgarten (Sophia Myles), an artist’s model (who models nude for Jerome’s class) and daughter of an acclaimed artist. Audrey is initially attracted to Jerome, whose attitude is refreshing and not like the affectations of the local art crowd. However, a fellow art student and jock-type named Jonah (Matt Keeslar) becomes the toast of the art school with his pop art paintings. When Audrey turns her attentions to Jonah, Jerome concocts various plans to win back her affections, which all fail, but his next one will put Jerome’s future at stake, as well as the lives of those in and around Strathmore.

While Art School Confidential comes across as a satire of art schools, the faculty, and students, it is also a love story and youth relationship drama. It works well as all three. As a work of satire, Clowes’ script is matter-of-fact about art school politics. All his characters exist more in their own worlds than they do in the larger world in which they also co-exist, whether or not they believe they do. It seems as if they tolerate people and desire others attentions mostly so others should validate their art, agendas, and careers.

As for the romance and drama: Max Minghella certainly makes Jerome Platz a likeable underdog for whom we root. He may a bit aloof and may be naïve in terms of his expectations, but he’s honest and his ignorance and rudeness are endearing. We want him to get the girl, and we love the girl, too. Sophia Myles plays Audrey, the object of desire, quite well – mainly because she’s an “It” girl with that kind of classic look that works so well in film.

Still, the question that’s on everyone’s mind, “Is Art School Confidential funny?” I thought it uproariously funny, although it goes dry at the beginning of the last act. Clowes views humanity with a sanguine eye, even when his work seems cynical. His comics are matter-of-fact about humanity – warts and all. He may privately pass judgment, but in his comics, he lets the reader make up his own mind. His movie writing is like that, and Zwigoff is adept at picking up both the subtle nuances and broad strokes of his screenwriting collaborators. That allows Zwigoff to spend his time letting his talented cast have fun with the script and story. The result is fun, even exceptionally good flicks like Art School Confidential.

8 of 10
A

Friday, October 20, 2006

New "G.I.: Retaliation" Poster" - December 7 , 2012

Review: "The Holiday" is So Lovable (Happy B'day, Nancy Meyers)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 1 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Holiday (2006)
Running time: 138 minutes (2 hours, 18 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexual content and some strong language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Nancy Meyers
PRODUCERS: Bruce A. Block and Nancy Meyers
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dean Cundey (director of photography)
EDITOR: Joe Hutshing
COMPOSER: Hans Zimmer

ROMANCE/COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, Eli Wallach, Rufus Sewell, Edward Burns, and Shannyn Sossamon

The subject of this review is The Holiday, a 2006 romantic comedy film from writer-director, Nancy Meyers. This Christmas/Holiday-themed film focuses on two women who trade homes after each suffers some romantic heartbreak.

Two women who live 6000 miles apart and have never met find their lives in the same place. In Los Angeles, Amanda (Cameron Diaz), who directs movie trailers, realizes that her live-in lover, Ethan (Edward Burns), has been unfaithful. In London, newspaper writer Iris (Kate Winslet) has been in love with Jaspar (Rufus Sewell) for three years, and now he’s about to marry someone else. Amanda and Iris meet online at a home exchange website and impulsively switch homes for the (Christmas) holiday.

Iris moves into Amanda’s large house in sunny California. She befriends Amanda’s neighbor, Arthur Abbot (Eli Wallach), a legendary screenwriter, now retired, who peps up her spirit and encourages Iris to befriend Miles (Jack Black), a film composer and acquaintance of Amanda’s. Meanwhile, Amanda moves into Iris’ small cottage in the snow-covered English countryside where she finds herself charmed by Iris’ handsome brother, Graham (Jude Law). However, both women soon find old issues creeping into their holiday cheer.

Nancy Meyers, writer/director of the delightful chick flick Something’s Gotta Give, delivers The Holiday, another fluffy film confection best served on a holiday winter evening. After an awful start in which Kate Winslet babbles a dry opening narration, The Holiday rights itself with lovable characters. To that end, the four leads don’t so much deliver great performances as they deliver great big dollops of charm every time they appear on screen.

The Holiday plays to the female audience, but this is also the kind of pure gooey entertainment that, during the holidays, can ensnare the unsuspecting heart of any guy who is a romantic at heart.

7 of 10
B+

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

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"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" Best Civil War Vampire Movie Ever

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 95 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Running time: 105 minutes (1 hour, 45 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence throughout and brief sexuality
DIRECTOR: Timur Bekmambetov
WRITER: Seth Grahame-Smith (based upon his novel)
PRODUCERS: Timur Bekmambetov, Tim Burton, and Jim Lemley
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Caleb Deschanel
EDITOR: William Hoy
COMPOSER: Henry Jackman

FANTASY/ACTION/HISTORICAL/WAR

Starring: Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, Marton Csokas, Jimmi Simpson, Erin Wasson, Jaqueline Fleming, Lux Haney-Jardine, Frank Brennan, John McConnell, and Alan Tudyk

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a 2012 vampire movie and action fantasy from Russian film director, Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted). The film is based on the 2010 novel of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote this film’s screenplay. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a fake historical that imagines real-life figure, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States (1865), as secretly being a vampire hunter.

Young Abraham Lincoln (Lux Haney-Jardine) saw his mother killed by plantation owner, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), who turned out to be a vampire. Adult Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker), obsessed with avenging his mother’s death, meets Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), who is bursting with knowledge about vampires. Henry becomes Lincoln’s vampire hunting mentor and teaches him the fine art of slaying vampires. Law student by day and vampire slayer by night, Lincoln draws the attention of Adam (Rufus Sewell), a powerful vampire leader and owner of a plantation deep in Louisiana.

After meeting his wife, Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Lincoln moves on to a life in politics. He keeps a tiny inner circle around him: William “Will” Johnson (Anthony Mackie), a young black man Lincoln knew as a child, and Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson), Lincoln’s former employer. As the Civil War rages, however, Adam and his order play a large role in the bloodshed, forcing Lincoln to make it his mission to eliminate the vampires before they take over the nation.

When I first saw Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds back in 2009, I was put off by the wild liberties with real-world history that this alternative historical film took. But thanks to Tarantino’s film, I had fewer misgivings about the ersatz history in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I still cringed at some historical inaccuracies, but not nearly as much as I did with Inglorious Basterds.

With that out of the way, I can say that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the best Civil War vampire movie that I’ve ever seen, and it is one of the best movies that is in whole or in part about the Civil War / War Between the States that I’ve seen. If anything, it certainly cements Timur Bekmambetov’s place as an imaginative and inventive architect of special-effects-wrought action sequences.

I do think that the cast gets much of the credit for keeping this historical epic-meets-monster movie from devolving into a joke. Benjamin Walker is surprisingly good as Lincoln, no mean feat in a year when Daniel Day-Lewis is also portraying Lincoln in a film. Rufus Sewell and Marton Csokas hit the right big-budget, B-movie monster notes as vampires. And I must give Mary Elizabeth Winstead extra credit for his portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln. She almost takes this thing entirely too seriously, but that still results in a heart-felt and spry performance.

I usually like it when a big studio, event movie takes the time to be a little subversive, and this movie is subversive and sly. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is not only anti-slavery, but it is also anti-Confederate States of America. It in no way treats the “Southern cause” as noble or sympathetic. Vampires are equated with slave owners, and the vampire lust for human blood is equated with slave owners’ brutal treatment and exploitation of slaves for profit and gain. Although it is entirely fictional, having the Confederacy unite with a league of vampires in a vain attempt to defeat the Union makes perfect sense. Evil game recognizes evil game.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is in many ways silly, but it is unique and just politically daring enough to be more than just another vampire movie.

7 of 10
B+

Wednesday, December 05, 2012